"Disservice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... know I was safe. I told them that while I thanked them for their loyal care, there was nought to be alarmed about. It was true that there had been an attempt on my life by four men, of whom the leader had a private grudge against me for a disservice I did him some years ago, but that all had been killed by my guards without even penetrating my chamber, and that I had run no sort of personal risk, nor had I any reason whatever to suppose that the malefactors had accomplices either within or ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... and gave shelter to, Captain Dave, and—it mattered not whether he was plain Cyril or Sir Cyril. I had certainly no thought of taking my title again until I entered a foreign army, and indeed it would have been a disservice to me here in London. I should have cut but a poor figure asking for work and calling myself Sir Cyril Shenstone. I should have had to enter into all sorts of explanations before anyone would have believed me, and I don't think that, even with you, I ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... of war-weariness, has advocated in his letter to the Daily Telegraph. His unfortunate intervention, playing into the hands of Pacificists and Pro-Boches, is all the more to be deplored in a public servant who has crowned a long, disinterested and distinguished career by an act of grievous disservice to his country. British grit will win, declares Sir William Robertson; but our elderly statesmen must refrain from dropping theirs into the machinery. Happily the Government are determined to give no more publicity to the letter than they can help. On the Vote of Credit ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... conformity to that as if it were an Eternal, and Unquestionable Principle of Truth. And thus too often is it seen that the Sacred Doctrines of Divine Revelation are submitted to be try'd by Philosophical Fancies, as a Criterion of their Truth; which is truly a more direct disservice to Christianity than the above-mentioned implicite Faith, since this evidently exposes even the Divine Authority of the Christian Religion to be question'd. For when any, especially if such whose profession it is to be Teachers of this Religion, shall either argue against the plain Sense of ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... outbursts of rage in the manner of those explosive gentlemen with whom Miss ETHEL DELL has familiarised us. There is both ingenuity and originality in this story, and I should be doing the author and his readers a great disservice if I disclosed the details of the plot. Anyone with a bent for treasure-hunting will be missing a fine opportunity if he refuses to have a day (or a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... disposed to recommend this man; may I perish, if you should not supplant all the rest!" "We do not live there in the manner you imagine; there is not a house that is freer or more remote from evils of this nature. It is never of any disservice to me, that any particular person is wealthier or a better scholar than I am: every individual has his proper place." "You tell me a marvelous thing, scarcely credible." "But it is even so." "You the more inflame my desires ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... we must call retrogression of organization. But the main cause lies in the fact that under very simple conditions of life a high organization would be of no service—possibly would be of actual disservice, as being of a more delicate nature and more liable to be put out of order ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... sacrament to the people. But the Officers and Soldiers in Garrison have Prophaned the Holy Sacrament of Baptism and Ministeriall Function, by presuming to Baptize their own children. Why His Majesty's Chaplain does not come to his Duty I know not, but am persuaded it is a Disservice and Dishonour to our Religion and Nation; and as I have heard, some have got their children Baptized by the Popish Priest, for there has been no Chaplain here for above these four years.'—Public Archives, Canada. Nova Scotia A, vol. xxv, ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... to begin my tendency to overtreat, rather than undertreat (when there was choice or danger) my subject. (Many members of my craft, I gather, are far from agreeing with me, but I have always held overtreating the minor disservice.) ... There was the danger of the noted "thinness"—which was to be averted, tooth and nail, by cultivation of the lively.... And then there was another matter. I had, within the few preceding years, come to live in London, and ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... Lord's mercy, ceased their obduracy. They built me a church, and I baptized many of them, both children at the breast and those somewhat older, and adults. If I have done any service to the Lord in that place, I pray His Majesty to receive it as a partial payment for my many acts of disservice. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... in reference to the point we were discussing, may I ask whether you know of any one who can attach a useful friend to himself without being of use in return? (14) Can service ally in friendship with disservice? ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... before, who know very little of the world or of temptations, were often flung in with very undesirable companions. There were many risks and many hard tests and the parents who see their young boys go to camp without preparing them, or warning them, do their boys a great disservice and I have known of sons who bore in their hearts a feeling of having been badly treated by their parents, that would never die, for being sent without a word ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... advice is to trust to his upright proceedings and with patience to overcome all things. Thus shall the detractors and calumniators best be confounded. Assure his Majesty and his ministers that I will do my utmost to avert our ruin and his Majesty's disservice." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... oppression, disservice, trespass, transgression, injury, tort, offense, grievance, detriment; error, falsity; immorality, vice, iniquity, sin, evil, improbity, guilt, misdoing, malpractice, offense, delinquency, peccancy, dereliction, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... secretly devoted ample remittances to the service of the King, and the most eminent Loyalists. As the state now liberally supported the prisoners, the exiles had the first claim on his purse. Unintentionally he feared, he had been of great disservice to Eustace, and therefore justice, as well as humanity and admiration, pointed him out as the first person whom he ought to assist. He would most willingly send Jobson with a sum of money to these illustrious friends, and he entreated him to discover where they had taken ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... added upon the attacks directed against the subject of the book, to which Dickens made reply in one of his later editions, declaring his belief that he had tried to do a service to society, and had certainly done no disservice, in depicting a knot of such associates in crime in all their deformity and squalid wretchedness, skulking uneasily through a miserable life to a painful and shameful death. It is, indeed, never the subject that can be objectionable, if the treatment is not so, as we may see by much popular ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... that he thought best to make during the inspection, he would break his head with a club; and, after dashing out his brains, would scatter them about the walls of the prison. Consequently, in order to avoid greater evils that might result to the disservice of your Majesty if his conduct should not be overlooked until your Majesty hears of it, he is allowed to continue his releasing [of prisoners] here during prison inspection, and out of it, at his will, without considering that they are imprisoned by the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... the soldier's death, gallantly, than live on to this humiliation and despair. A friendly bullet could have saved him many difficulties and much unhappiness. And why had he recovered from the fever? What an irony it was that Mary should claim gratitude for doing him the greatest possible disservice! ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... another world, by which Spain, heretofore poor, has suddenly become rich. Whatever errors I may have fallen into, they were not with an evil intention; and I believe their majesties will credit what I say. I have known them to be merciful to those who have willfully done them disservice; I am convinced that they will have still more indulgence for me, who have erred innocently, or by compulsion, as they will hereafter be more fully informed; and I trust they will consider my great services, the advantages of which are every ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... force and the set of whose currents depends the prosperous voyaging of humanity. When our names are blotted out, and our place knows us no more, the energy of each social service will remain, and so too, let us not forget, will each social disservice remain, like the unending stream of one of nature's forces. The thought that this is so may well lighten the poor perplexities of our daily life, and even soothe the pang of its calamities; it lifts us from our feet as on wings, opening a larger ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... I fear you have done me some little disservice, in borrowing the first edition of my poems from Miss B—. I never held any principles indeed, of which, considering my age, I have reason to be ashamed. The whole of my public life may be comprised in eight or nine months of my 22nd year; and the whole of my political sins during that time, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... there a second time. 18. Within three or four days the Spaniards returned for maize, and to rob the Indians of the town. The Indians having seen that the said captain kept and observed his word so little, all the country revolted, which did much harm and disservice to God Our Lord, and to His Majesty. 19. So the whole country is left deserted, because the people have been destroyed by their enemies the Olomas and Manipos: these are a warlike people from the mountains, who descended every day to the plains to capture and despoil ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... his friends, in fact the whole of his life to the daily expectation of a meeting which, when it occurred, would bring him no happiness; and he asked himself whether he was not mistaken, whether the circumstances that had favoured their relations and had prevented a final rupture had not done a disservice to his career, whether the outcome to be desired was not that as to which he rejoiced that it happened only in dreams—his own departure; and he said to himself that people did not know when they were unhappy, that they were never so happy as ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of shame to which he could not stoop. A man so placed, perhaps, may even betray his country to her honour. In this hope at least the flag which he had hauled down covered his body still as we committed it to the sea, its service or disservice done. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shells, at former periods of time. These facts seem to be very perplexing, for they seem to show that this kind of variability is independent of the conditions of life. I am inclined to suspect that we see in these polymorphic genera variations in points of structure which are of no service or disservice to the species, and which consequently have not been seized on and rendered definite by natural selection, as hereafter will ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... that you would hardly have been able to have written at all. And it is my request that you will not, by attempting more than you are able to undergo, with safety and convenience, injure yourself, and thereby render me a disservice.... I had rather therefore hear that you had nursed than exposed yourself. And the things which I sent from this place (I mean the wine, tea, coffee and sugar) and such other matters as you may lay in by the doctor's direction for the use of the sick, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... Oenus. But Aristotle thinks, by Cnacion is meant the river, and by Babyce the bridge. Between these they held their assemblies, having neither halls, nor any kind of building for that purpose. These things he thought of no advantage to their councils, but rather a disservice; as they distracted the attention, and turned it upon trifles, on observing the statues and pictures, the splendid roofs, and every other theatrical ornament. The people thus assembled had no right ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various |
